Overwatch 2’s forty first hero, Juno, is playable this weekend for a restricted time, and followers have already unearthed a shocking little bit of lore about the purple-haired area cadet healer and Mei.
Overwatch is stuffed with voice strains that flesh out lore from its myriad of maps in addition to relationships between heroes and villains. It’s simply not each character’s demise throw voice line would reveal a doable familial tie. Apparently, eliminating Mei as Juno triggers a voice-over change during which the Martian hero says, “Sorry, Auntie!” in response to Mei’s dying gasp.
This tidbit of gameplay lore is important not solely in that it would verify the hero shooter’s fourth familial tie amongst its heroes, however it additionally appears to debunk a key fan concept about Juno’s identification.
AUNTIE?! pic.twitter.com/LYlwwoVNCu
— Hazelet (@HazeletOW) July 19, 2024
Juno and Jiayi
Late final 12 months, a r/Overwatch thread theorized that Juno—then referred to as Area Ranger—was a girl named Jiayi. In response to the thread’s unique poster, Mei had a brand new voice line that might set off whereas at Lijiang Management Middle, the place she would reminisce over a pal named Jiaya, who she went to grad college with.
Seeing as how this voice line cropped up a month previous to Juno’s reveal at Blizzcon 2023, followers shortly started theorizing that Jiayi was the authorities identify for Juno. At the time, the concept appeared stable, contemplating Lijiang is the location of Overwatch 2’s in-universe Chinese language area station, and Juno’s entire gimmick is that she’s an astronaut hailing from Mars.
This concept took on new life a day earlier than Juno’s limited-time launch when X/Twitter consumer Pampurins posited that Jiayi could actually be the name of Juno’s mother. Pampurin’s revised concept sounds prefer it’s proper on the cash due to the newly found voice line interplay.
JUNO ELIM LINE ON MEI!
“(gasp) Sorry Auntie!” pic.twitter.com/UQz6656LiU
— Shroomiiee (@mushroomiiee) July 19, 2024
Whereas the voice line seems to be thought of exhausting proof that the two are aunt and niece, there’s additionally a excessive chance that additionally it is only a time period of endearment, seeing as how the phrase aunt is usually used to handle older girls. IGN has reached out to Blizzard for remark. Regardless, gamers will probably get an earful of the particular voice line interplay throughout Juno’s weekend of play earlier than her full launch comes Season 12 on August 20.
Isaiah Colbert is a contract author for IGN. You possibly can observe them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.